Ava Bach
Free and reduced school lunches have existed for years. However, these benefits are becoming far less accessible to students.
Before lockdown due to COVID in March of 2020, if you needed free lunch at school you had to apply for it. On this application, you had to provide all incomes within your household, information about other assistance programs you partook in, and, in some instances, your ethnicity. With the advent of COVID and the ensuing lockdown, things changed. Parents lost their jobs and weren't able to work, rent went up, family members got sick, and life became dramatically different for so many people. Because of these drastic changes, hundreds of thousands of kids in New York State did not have access to meals. This fact continued after the lockdown ended. In response, Congress authorized the Depart of Agriculture to offer what is commonly called the Universal Free Lunch Program, waivers that let every US student be given free lunch, regardless of income. This program expired in June of this year. Although President Biden passed the Keep Kids Fed Act, also in June, it is not enough to keep all kids from going hungry.
In New York alone, 800,000 children rely on their schools providing them a free lunch. But now, over 2,000 schools will not be providing free school lunches for everyone, only for those whose families’ incomes are less than $35,000. The state legislature has not given funding to continue the program of providing free meals to all in the 2023 fiscal year budget.
The problems that arise from this are serious. People that weren’t previously considered low-income are struggling to get by. During the height of the pandemic, the median income of lower income households decreased by 3.0% and the median income of middle income households fell by 2.1%. This is a drastic change in less than a two year period.
Providing meals to families regardless of their income allows for children to be healthier and feel better about themselves. Nutritious lunches are proven to help a child's academic performance and allow them to grow and live a normal life. Some people argue that $262 million a year is too much debt for the nation to have from a year of providing meals for free. However, more than 1.5 million students still continue to pay full price for lunches they cannot afford. The reality is that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over: More than 4 million people are currently out of jobs due to COVID and over 8.4 million citizens are unemployed as of 2022. Free meals are as needed as ever.
Along with the need for free meals comes the stigma surrounding them. Prior to Covid, many children as young as six years old would get bullied and harassed by other students for receiving lunches paid for by the state. Nyack High School student Grace Bach (Junior) put this simply: “You shouldn't be worrying about anyone's economic status other than your own.” In early grades, kids are easily molded and the trauma of being shamed for receiving school lunches will be imprinted on their brains for a long time after. Many students with the grant for free food still refuse to get it, simply because of the fear of being humiliated in front of all their friends and classmates. In some states, it is estimated that a third of students eligible to receive free meals choose to skip lunch rather than suffer the embarrassment.
Student Mayeli Parada of Nyack High School made an excellent point that “some families are still struggling from the hardships that Covid put them through… and it sucks that people see grabbing free lunch as something more than just being hungry.” When lunch is free to everybody, there is no divide; everyone is the same and others don't pay attention to your family’s income or financial situation.
With the easy access to free lunches in schools coming to an end, many of us can't help but wonder: Is this fair? Advocates are urging lawmakers to push through an emergency waiver to continue the free meals until the economic state of the country has stabilized and families are in the position to provide healthy lunches for their children.
Sources: “A Teen's Plea For Universal Free School Lunch” Forbes
“COVID-era free lunch program used by 800,000 students in NY expires June 30” Spectrum News 1
“Income Declines During COVID-19” Federal Reserve
“Income Eligibility Guidelines” Food and Nutrition Service
“School Lunch Shaming: A ‘Hidden’ Bully for Latino Kids” Salud America
"Universal free lunch program expires, only qualified students to receive free or reduced lunch" WVTM 13
"Universal free school lunch program is set to expire" Washington Post